Next Tools overview

What Next Tools are, which AI-powered tools are available, how to run one and how to link the results to an Innovation Opportunity.

Next Tools are AI-powered methodologies in the Leader area of SolveNext Lab. Each tool walks you through a structured set of drills and uses AI to generate analysis, personas or simulated conversations about an innovation idea. Your runs are saved so you can come back, continue and link the results to an Innovation Opportunity.

Why it matters

Next Tools help you test an idea before you invest in it. Instead of starting from a blank page, you get a guided process that surfaces pain points, demand signals, risks and stakeholder reactions, which you can then use to decide what to do next with an opportunity.

Available tools

The Next Tools page groups the tools by subject:

Next Cycle Management
- Pain Hypothesis Generation: explore who is affected by a problem, how painful it is and its root causes, and turn that into pain hypotheses.
- Wanted: check whether people actually want your solution, combining pain hypotheses with an AI focus group.
- Worth It: assess whether an opportunity is worth pursuing by weighing forms of capital, risks, promises, gaps and fallback plans.
- AI Focus Group: generate AI personas and run a simulated focus group conversation about your hypothesis, with a summary of the results.
Next Decision Making
- Super 7: generate AI board members for your innovation opportunity and simulate a board conversation that ends with a recommendation.
Next Funding, Next Portfolio Management and Next Operating Principles show Coming soon! and can't be used yet.

Key concepts

Tool: the template, with its Overview, Instructions, Drills and Videos tabs.
Run: your own use of a tool. Each run shows as In progress or Finished under Recently used.
Context: runs you start in a team workspace belong to that team, and team members can see them. Runs in your personal workspace are yours only.
Files: some steps in Super 7, AI Focus Group and Wanted let you upload a file (PDF, and in some steps images) that the AI reads as extra context.

How to run a Next Tool

Switch to the context you want to work in (your personal workspace or a team workspace) and open the Leader area.
In the Leader sidebar, click Next Tools.
Under All Tools, find the tool you want and click Go to Tool.
Read the Overview and Instructions tabs if you need guidance, then click the Use button (for example, Use Worth It).
Follow the steps on screen. Where a step offers it, click Select and Upload File to add a document as context.
Use the tool's action buttons to generate results, for example Generate personas, Run AI Focus Group or Run Super 7. Results appear on the page when the AI finishes.
To return later, open Next Tools and click Continue (in progress) or See results (finished) under Recently used. Click View all recently used to see older runs.

How to link a run to an Innovation Opportunity

Open a saved run from Recently used.
In the Select opportunity to link field, choose the opportunity.
Click Link Next Tool to Opportunity.

The run then appears in the Next Tools section of the opportunity page, with Continue or See results links.

Tips

To move a personal run into a team, click Move to Team on its card under Recently used.
Some tools let you re-run a generation step (for example, re-running the AI Focus Group) if you want a different result.

Access

The Next Tools sidebar link requires a paid license. If your account has a Free license, the link takes you to the upgrade plans instead. See the Licensing overview.